Sir Keir Starmer will announce plans to block all new North Sea oil and gas developments and limit borrowing to green investment only as part of a radical blueprint to make Britain a “clean energy superpower”.
The Labour leader is expected to set out his net zero energy policy when he launches his latest “national mission” in Scotland next month. It will include a pledge to ban all new North Sea oil and gas licences, signalling a seismic shift in decades of UK energy policy.
Decommissioning costs. That’s what’ll kill this.
Back when the oil companies all knew that they should save some money to pay for decommissioning fields at their end of life. Tearing down the rigs etc.
Government said bollocks, we want the cash now. So, oil companies paid their taxes and didn’t save. Because the government deal was that you can have the tax repaid when you do have to decommission. The tax paid instead of saving for decommissioning, that is.
OK, so a lot of that decommissioning is now happening or is about to. The burden on the Treasury is substantial. And the new oil fields only just starting to pay tax are what pays those taxes back in those decommissioning costs.
Don’t have the new fields starting up and there’s going to be an awful hole in the Treasury accounts. Because, of course, they’ve already spent that oil tax money that now needs to be repaid.
I would bet good money that there’s someone in the Treasury, right now, trying to alert Starmer and Reeves to this little problemette. Whether they’ll even understand it when it’s explained is another thing.
The major problem in the headline is that it assumes Sir Kneel has the necessary equipment to perform the action. He won’t even have heard of ChatLBQTG2 (The approved fake AI)
Making that speech in Aberdeen may be unwise. Still, it won’t make any difference. Tory windfall taxes have already shot the fox.
What makes you think he just won’t tell the oil companies they aren’t getting any decommissioning refunds? Parliament is supreme, it can apply laws retrospectively if it wants to, its done so before.
I really don’t know why you think these people will ‘play by the rules’. They’ll do exactly as they wish, and damn conventions or previous agreements.
Yes Jim. I’m remembering Albo the Great’s promise, before the election of course, that our ‘leccy bills’d drop by about $250. Needless to say they’ve risen by almost that amount, and they’re due to rise much more.
After all we have to pay for all that cheap electricity from the windmills and solar panels don’t we? You have to pay lots more money if stuff’s costing you less, don’t you?
I’ve been reading Bryan Caplan’s book Voters as Mad Scientists. In it he points out, inter alia, that our political system leads to politicians making hyperbolic promises that play to people’s irrational prejudices when trying to get elected because people never bother checking whether the promises were kept afterwards(*). This is one of those, and Tim’s argument will undoubtedly be trotted out as the reason why we have to have another oil or gas field opened.
(*) I’d say the more cynical of us never expect them to be kept.
cynical….realistcradical blueprint to make Britain a “clean energy superpower”.
Translation: you won’t be allowed to use a hairdryer and MP’s are probably soon going to stop exposing themselves to the public in places without armed coppers.
Maybe the Tories will stand up for TRADITIONAL British values, such as LEZzies and grooming gangs everywhere.
Take that, Putin.
Decommissioning costs. That’s what’ll kill this.
I wonder if that’s the case. I also rather doubt whether Jim is on the right track here although he’s certainly correct about duplicity never being an obstacle for a shameless governing caste.
The problem is that post covid, the state thinks they it get away with anything because intense propaganda can ensure compliance from an infantilised population.
However, it will take a personality more powerful than any of our current crop of potentail leaders to transform us into a herd of happy insect eating indentured workers testing the boundaries of our cold and darkened 15-minute cities courtesy of Shanks’s pony.
intense propaganda can ensure compliance from an infantilised population
92% of British adults failed the Mystery Injection IQ test, so I’d say they have good reason to be confident in offering the electorate a dog skin cap.
Aberdeen airport is going to be busy with the Labour leadership and the media arriving. There might even be a Norwegian minister and entourage dropping in to make sure Sir Keir doesn’t really mean *all* new North Sea oil and gas licences.
I’ve seen comments praising Reeves. Is that opinion based on the supposition that she’s less stupid than Angela Slag, the Deputy Leader? Not much of a test that. Our cats could pass it. And they’re both dead.
…to make Britain a “clean energy superpower”.
FTFY:
…to make Britain a “third-world sh*thole”.
Well at least Reeves has some good stuff on her CV. New College Oxford, Tim’s alma mater the LSE, and work as an economist at the BoE and in commercial banking.
Whereas Sir Kneel’s background and interest was mainly in Human Rights aspects of the law, which in intellectual rigour for a legal professional is about epsilon semi-moron level and is the favoured home of not very bright grifters.
Steve: 92% of British adults failed the Mystery Injection IQ test
You fail the Fake statistic IQ test.
The 8% unvaccinated number was derived by deducting the total number of people vaccinated from the (seriously understated) ONS figure for the total population taken at the 2011 census. The good news, then, is there’s a lot more of us than you seem to think.
The Mystery Climate Crisis IQ test has:
1) rather more scepticism among candidates and appreciably less mystery and
2) no lovely free furlough money.
“Well at least Reeves has some good stuff on her CV. New College Oxford, Tim’s alma mater the LSE, and work as an economist at the BoE and in commercial banking.”
Your definition of ‘good stuff’ is obviously considerably at odds to mine. In my world that lot would just about qualify her to mop floors somewhere, only after a long training and probationary period naturally.
‘…to make Britain a “third-world sh*thole”.’
Yes Jonathan. I’d say that UK pollies are even as stupid as the Aussie variety.
Though I must give Pauline Hanson credit. She did tell Mehreen Faruqi to “piss off back to Pakistan” after she said Liz was queen of a racist empire.
TMB – the levers marked “vote” are no longer connected to anything, so I can’t see where the resistance is going to come from (which doesn’t mean there won’t be any).
The Rishi coup is as serious as a heart attack, because it marks the end of the pavement for British democracy, but it’s treated as seriously as vaccine skepticism in the House of Commons. Lots of sniggering and sneering from the fuckwits and Cupid Stunts who actually run things in Britain.
Steve @ 11.22, It appears to me that the fuckwits who actually run things in Britain don’t actually reside in Britain (nor Brussels/Strasbourg either).
Since the trawlermen wrecked the seabed the only places marine life thrives in the North Sea is around the platforms. I say leave them there to rot, the fish don’t care. Legislating to cut them off no higher than a metre above sea bed might win a by election in Grimsby but is otherwise a stupid idea.
philip @ 12.25″ Since the trawlermen wrecked the seabed”. I saw an interesting article detailing the history of coastal erosion on the Essex/Suffolk/Norfolk coastline. Been happening for centuries obviously, but accelerated when they started dredging off the coast in the eighties, some of which ended up in my neck of the woods (as it were) and lots went over to Clogland.
Seems there are plenty of people wrecking “(insert your particle fancy but basically everything)”…..
Concur with Jim. I’ve known of hardened violent criminals with more encouraging CV’s.
Addolff – the owners don’t, but their hired staff of perma-grinning Indian popinjays, rat-faced bankers, fat posh cunts, etc. have to live here.
I’m not sure decommissioning costs are enough to change starmer’s mind. The UK North sea has changed a lot over the last decade, with a lot of smaller companies operating the aging assets. The decom input from the treasury comes in the form of a tax rebate/offset. A few years ago, when they oil price was low, I worked on the decom of a small asset, owned by a small operator. I heard the operator say that they were expecting to get nothing back from the government on this, because they were not making any money elsewhere, so had no tax bill to claim back from.
This city is screwed. Ah well, it was tolerable while it lasted.
If they don’t give them decommissioning rebates, they won’t decommission.
The Government can hardly then complain that they didn’t keep their promises!
At a certain point the cost of shafting people is that others will no longer want to deal with you. This is a major problem for most of South America.
BiA – This city is screwed.
But at least it’ll be a Diverse poverty.